Charter of demands emerges on social media as ‘SA fees revolution’ goes global

MESSAGES of support for the nationwide # FeesMustFall movement have poured in, with academics from various universities releasing statements voicing their concern for students and support for the campaign.

A group of UCT medical school academics positioned themselves at the front of Thursday’s march through their campus.

Kelly Moult, of the Academics Union at UCT, said they stood with the students in their demand for no fee increase in 2016.

She said the university should drop charges and reverse the court interdict against protesting students.

The university obtained the interdict on Monday following campus- wide protests which led to clashes with police. “We also demand that the university holds government to account,” Moult said.

At Stellenbosch University, the Open Stellenbosch Collective, one of the respondents to a court interdict obtained by the university on Monday, said: “We call on the public to stand and speak out in support of marginalised students, espe- cially those that have been mistreated and abused during the recent protests against exorbitant fee increases. This is a matter of equality and human dignity, principles that we should all value and must protect, especially when they are so callously violated,” the collective said in a statement.

Another group of SU concerned academic staff wrote to the university management calling for the withdrawal of the interdict against nine students and the OpenStellenbosch Collective. “Without the removal of the interdict, there can be no peaceful resolution of the current impasse,” the academics said. They further called for university management to urgently meet staff and clarify the confusion surrounding examinations.

Later yesterday the univer- sity announced the withdrawal of the interdict and that exams had been postponed.

The School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London condemned this week’s violence against protesting students at various universities.

“We, therefore, want to express our full solidarity towards the continued protests and shutdowns by the students and staff of Wits, UCT, Stellenbosch and Rhodes, as well as other South African universities that are planning mass protests: University of Pretoria, UKZN, Fort Hare, CPUT, University of the Free State, and more,” the school’s statement read.

South African non- profit education organisation, Equal Education, called for “a moratorium on fee increments across the country followed by meaningful and democratic conversations and interventions with regard to the funding crisis”.

They further called for “deliberate steps to be taken to realise free, quality tertiary education, and for no students, staff or workers be victimised by university management through internal or external disciplinary structures”.